Angry White Males

To hear the Obamaites, those raucous crowds pouring into town hall meetings are “mobs” of “thugs” whose rage has been “manufactured” by K Street lobbyists and right-wing Republican operatives.

Press secretary Robert Gibbs compares them to the Young Republicans of the “Brooks Brothers riot” during the Florida recount.

But is it wise for the White House to denigrate and insult scores of thousands with the fire and energy to come to town meetings in August, and who appear to represent millions? Is this depiction fair or accurate?

Most K Street lobbyists could not organize a two-car funeral. They don’t storm meetings. They buy friends with $1,000 checks. And if GOP operatives are turning out these crowds, why could they not turn them out for John McCain, unless Sister Sarah showed up?

The Obamaites had best wake up. Opposition to health-care reform is surging, and Barack Obama’s campaigning has gone hand-in-hand with collapsing support, just as George W. Bush’s barnstorming did for Social Security reform.

There is an anger out there unseen since Ross Perot was leading Bush I and Bill Clinton in the presidential trial heats in 1992.

Who are these folks? Why are they angry?

In his essay “Decline of the American Male” in USA Today, David Zinczenko, editor of Men’s Health, give us a clue. “Of the 5.2 million people who’ve lost their jobs since last summer, four out of five were men. Some experts predict that this year, for the first time, more American women will have jobs than men.”

Ed Rubenstein, who has written for Forbes, National Review and the Wall Street Journal, blogs on VDARE.com that if one uses the household survey of job losses for June-July, Hispanics gained 150,000 positions, while non-Hispanics lost 679,000. Guess who got the stimulus jobs.

Going back to the beginning of the Bush presidency, Rubenstein says that “for every 100 Hispanics employed in January 2001, there are now 122.5. … (But) for every 100 non-Hispanics employed in January 2001, there are now 98.9.”

Since 2001, Hispanic employment has increased by 3,627,000 positions, while non-Hispanic positions have fallen by 1,362,000. For black and white America, the Bush decade did not begin well or end well, and it has gotten worse under Obama.

African-Americans remain loyal, but among white folks, where Obama ran stronger than John Kerry or Al Gore, he is hemorrhaging.

According to the latest Quinnipiac poll, which showed him falling to 50 percent approval, whites, by 54 percent to 27 percent, felt Obama behaved “stupidly” in the Sgt. Crowley-professor Gates dustup.

Fifteen straight months of job losses by non-Hispanics explains the anger, but columnist Lowell Ponte raises an issue that may explain who is protesting health-care reform and why.

Under the civil rights legal doctrine of disparate impact, used in the New Haven firefighters case, if tests for hirings and promotions consistently produce results disadvantageous to minorities, the tests are, de facto, suspect as inherently discriminatory, and the results are tossed out. New Haven canceled the promotions for firefighters when all but one of the firemen who passed the test were white, and not a single African-American made the cut.

The city argued that New Haven was acting true to the letter of the Civil Rights Act, which says that tests that consistently produce a disparate and unfavorable impact on African-Americans must go.

Who are the principal beneficiaries? The 47 million uninsured who will be covered. Who are the principal losers? The elderly sick who, in the name of controlling costs, are going to lose benefits, be denied care at the end of their lives and have their lives shortened. For half of all health-care costs are in the last six months of life, and cost control is priority No. 1.

Here is where the disparate impact hits. Among those who benefit most — the uninsured — African-Americans, Hispanics and immigrants are overrepresented. Among the biggest losers — seniors and the elderly sick — well over 80 percent are white. Ponte quotes Fox News’ Dick Morris:

“The principal impact of the Obama health-care program will be to reduce sharply the medical services the elderly can use. No longer will their every medical need be met, their every medication prescribed, their every need to improve their quality of life answered.”

Under Obamacare, adds Morris, “the elderly will go from being the group with the most access to free medical care to the one with the least access.”

America is already divided ideologically and politically on health-care reform. And with seniors having to sacrifice care, while the young are all insured, a generational divide is opening.

Now Nobel prize-winner and New York Times pundit Paul Krugman writes in his “The Town Hall Mobs” column that, as did Richard Nixon’s men, “cynical political operators are … appealing to the racial fears of working-class whites.”

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15 Responses to Angry White Males

Don’t wish to be a troll on this site with regard to healthcare, but Ireland has a comparatively universal healthcare system (with private insurance far less expensive than in the US, to get better rooms, more access to consultants etc.) and one of the reasons was to make sure people like the elderly aren’t left out. Neither do they promote abortion or euthanise old people.

I have gained a lot of respect for Mr. Buchanan, and I appreciate what he is saying about the “angry white males” having a reason for revolt, but it is a complete non-sequitor to join this with a fear of healthcare reform.

Republicans could be doing great work ensuring value-for-money and using common-sense criticisms, and instead they are defending the healthcare equivalent of banksters, and letting Democrats take the high ground.

PJB,
Hope you are doing well. Please try for a while not to fixate on the race of your fellow countryfolks. “We are headed for interesting times” when that happens. Your insights are a gift besides the race thing. Good luck

These protesters could stop the dreaded “government takeover” of health care tomorrow morning if they wanted to, by actually following their religion. Luke 6:20
And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: “Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” But most of these Christians, so concerned about government health care, don’t lift a finger to help their neighbors, the indigent, and infirm. Instead they choose the comforts of middle-class consumerism over actual Christian piety. Tell me again – exactly how did the Apostles survive without a Christian rock industry? New Clothes? Cell Phones? Where in the Bible does it say to horde money and possessions here on earth? Can someone cite the verse about cutting tax rates on the rich? Where in the Bible does it say the whole world revolves around me, me, me, and what I want? I’m also still searching for the verse that says something about “blessed are the warmongers, for they shall conquer the Kingdom of God.”

Jeremiah Whitmore, your biblical call to arms is well taken, but at least from the point of view of rich and middle class Christians, it leaves something out. They are already “tithing” via taxation to a government that squanders what it gets and proposes to enact further encroachments. American Christians have a high rate of charitable/religious giving, but governmental assumption of the role of guarantor of charity over the years has sapped the giving impulse here, as it has in all social welfare states.

They’re completely neutral and they are doing a good job handling a lot of the false claims being made about the health care reform.

Everyone is welcome to dissent, I will never denigrate someone’s right to have their voice heard in a debate like this, regardless of whether they agree with me or not. However, showing up at a town hall meeting with the express purpose of doing nothing more than disrupting it and shouting people down is not a good way to get your voice heard.

The proper thing to do is to educate yourself as much as you can about the issue, come up with a list of concerns, come up with a strong yet meaningful way to get these concerns across to the right people, and DO so.

But…showing up with signs and slogans based on deliberate misinformation being spread about this bill, then proceeding to do nothing but shout and intimidate, this is simply not useful to matter how you cut it.

Unlike you, I’m not upset about poor blacks & Mexicans getting healthcare, along with poor whites (and Asians, Middle-Easterners and any other American non-white. It’s these poor who are clogging our emergency rooms and (I’ve recently learned) emergency vehicles because they don’t have healthcare and don’t do preventative or wellness care. And I’d like to see how Mr. Morris comes up with the assumption that the elderly will receive less benefits. That’s the same scare tactic as the so-called death panel.

While I do worry about the administrative and management costs I do think it will actually reduce most Americans’ bills by increasing the amount of bargaining power a group the size of the American public possesses. Who’s to say those same benefits administrators and case managers from the private sector won’t now be employed by the feds? This seems to happen in private industry when it welcomes senators and congressmen into its folds.

And Mr. O’Connell, this is an intelligent site. I’ve never been called nor read anyone else referred to as a troll. Welcome.

Is there anything more stupid than “party followers”? Those faithful sheep to the dems or the repubs. The little boy game of us against them, the red team against the blue team? Government by sports fans, talk radio and and gossiping talking heads instead of actual news you can use?

Everyone in this country, dem or repub, has a “”common enemy”‘…which is “”political corruption”" gone wild in our entire political system..

But the “people”are too stupid to join together to end it. The self serving politicans, the elites, the agents of influence have you just where they want you…..acting like a knuckle dragging mob of sports fans throwing shit at each other while they use your distraction to continue their merry way sucking the life out of you and out of the country as a whole.

Interesting that the bulk of the ‘facts’ provided in this article are courtesy of Ed Rubenstein, whose seminal work (on mass deportation) was sponsored by the NPI (stated mission: “to elevate the consciousness of whites, ensure our biological and cultural continuity, and protect our civil rights.”).

Could it be that there’s an agenda here?

In point of fact, unemployment for whites has been flat in the period June-July, with the number of employed *increasing* by 89,000. The number of unemployed *fell* by a statistically insignificant 5,000.

For Hispanics in the same period, more did find work (164,000) but the greater increase in the numbers of job seekers meant 128,000 additional unemployed, slightly increasing the overall unemployment rate for this group.

Yes, men have disproportionately lost their jobs, but the ethnic aspect to this is nothing more than the same tired ‘us vs. them’ rhetoric based on cooked up numbers.

(The numbers used in this post courtesy of Bureau of Labor Statistics, available on their web site in the Employment Situation Summary and attached tables.)

I’m not going to respond to all of your characterizations contained within your writing, but it’s always astounding to watch you go to incredible lengths to justify the Republican flavor of the moment.

“Who are these folks? Why are they angry?

In his essay “Decline of the American Male” in USA Today, David Zinczenko, editor of Men’s Health, give us a clue. “Of the 5.2 million people who’ve lost their jobs since last summer, four out of five were men. Some experts predict that this year, for the first time, more American women will have jobs than men.””

This is truly incoherent. If your column is discussing dissent about healthcare, it is illogical to then talk about the unemployed as being that group who is dissenting. First, the recently unemployed will be the group who gets to learn firsthand all about our medical insurance program – the hard way. It seems more logical they would be searching for a way to get healthcare while out of a job, something our current system doesn’t make available.

Which you then follow-up to with several meandering thoughts about unrelated race and statistics that somehow gets you here:

“Who are the principal beneficiaries? The 47 million uninsured who will be covered. Who are the principal losers? The elderly sick who, in the name of controlling costs, are going to lose benefits, be denied care at the end of their lives and have their lives shortened. For half of all health-care costs are in the last six months of life, and cost control is priority No. 1.

Here is where the disparate impact hits. Among those who benefit most — the uninsured — African-Americans, Hispanics and immigrants are overrepresented. Among the biggest losers — seniors and the elderly sick — well over 80 percent are white. Ponte quotes Fox News’ Dick Morris:”

Your point, paraphrased is that minorities represent the largest portion of the poor and therefore would be the largest recipients of benefits to this plan. Which you seem to imply is unjust, because they are not white. I don’t think I need to attack your logic here – it’s facially wrong.

I would note further incoherence: the government provides the current end of life medical coverage for the elderly (where other coverage is not purchased). So what exactly are you trying to say? That one group who gets no benefits from the government should not have benefits provided to them at the cost of another group who is wholly dependent on government benefits?

Further, no one gets the benefits that Morris is espousing, with the exception of those who can already afford to pay for it. No plan currently in discussion (or those from any other country that has adopted some sort of government plan, including your favorite whipping boys Canada and England) would do away with your ability to purchase health care services in addition to what is provided by the government, including the public option. Do you guys (conservatives) even think about this stuff before you just spout out gibberish? I think that would be better than: thinking about it and then either misrepresenting it or getting it wrong.

Either way, your position lacks coherence and fundamentally misrepresents reality. I’m not sure why you decided that Morris is now a leading commentator on the healthcare debate. More than likely, he’s a convenient quote for something you believe in already – regardless of whether he has any evidence or rational for his position. So, you’ve just supported your own unsupported opinion, with another unsupported opinion. Doesn’t being wrong so often bother you?

As a Canadian it astounds me that so many people in your country are simply unaware that the lastest figures on income distribution in the United States shows that the top-heavy spread continues to grow.
A mere 300,000 people have incomes equal to the total income of the bottom earning half of the entire population. That’s 150 million people. Those 300,000 had incomes 440 times greater than the average income in the United States. The last time the income imbalance was so large was in the 1920s&30s. In the 40s to 60’s the gaps between wealth and income were lessened thanks to war, the income tax, pro-employee legislation and labor organizations that forced a mild redistribution of the profits. -that’s all gone/
Your corporations and your super rich are laughing up their sleeves on their way to the bank having passed legislation that allows them to get out of paying much tax at all. While at the same time convincing the middleclass including those who should know better from the educated professional classes that they are on the side of the right and the good.
How else could someone actually believe what they posted on this site. Tithing —ha! ha! ha!
*”Jeremiah Whitmore, your biblical call to arms is well taken, but at least from the point of view of rich and middle class Christians, it leaves something out. They are already “tithing” via taxation to a government that squanders what it gets and proposes to enact further encroachments. American Christians have a high rate of charitable/religious giving, but governmental assumption of the role of guarantor of charity over the years has sapped the giving impulse here, as it has in all social welfare states.

Ignore the socialist agit-prop above. Lewrockwell.com, the Ayn Rand Institute and the Ludwig Von Mises website all
have comprehensive essays and links to books refuting every
premise of statist socialized medicine. The only thing I would
worry about the town halls if the LaRouche nuts were running them, then it would be a case of National Socialists fighting
National Socialists in DC.

What about the verbal and sometimes physical abuse that I have witnessed and experienced on the streets in the past few years. For instance, upon walking into a public store to purchase my favorite flask of whiskey to sip on a very sober and serious young (black, African-American?) man screamed at the top of his lungs to his buddy “get a rope” after looking me straight into the eyes. Or, how about the time last month when I was trying to make a delivery to the Bank of America building in Charlotte, where security is understandably tight, a black security guard, after seeing my white coworker, declared: “looky here the KKK just rolled up.’
There seems to be all this rhetoric about politics in “Washington.’ But, regular people in public (most of which have never instigated in sort of racial confrontation in their lives) have suffer the quagmire of black and white, or red and brown.
What is the solution? I’ll tell you. The complete obliteration of all things race oriented, unless we are talking about things like diseases that effect those of one genetic disposition or another. I could go on.
The problem is clearly defined. I ask, ‘who will help to solve it?’
I am just an average ‘Jasen” trying to earn a living, find a hobby the gets the adrenaline pumping, and educate myself so that I may, in some way, help the human race to improve its seemingly short time on the planet Earth.